Boo Humbug by Rene Gutteridge

It’s Friday of Rene Gutteridge Week. I’m glad for the weekend, as always, but I’m also a bit sad to see the end of this special focus. There are, at least, a few more hours left, though. Later today I’ll post my interview with the author — and the giveaways of Possession, her latest, will remain open through the end of the day.

Summary
Lois Stepaphanopolis (great name, right?) has hijacked the community theater of Skary, Indiana (well, not literally) for her latest “genius” plan, twisting arms to get players and all. What’s the play? She’s re-written Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Thoughts
This is a slip of a book, and yes, it’s a Christmas story. Despite saying in December that I thought Christmas books weren’t really for me, I read this one in the days before Christmas and I quite liked it. I think a big reason why is that it’s not sickly sweet.

Rather, Boo Humbug is funny, as I expected of this series. Yes, it still has a message appropriate for Christmas.

The characters we’ve come to love are still very present, but this book is written from a fresh perspective.

The brilliance of this book is its use of the Dickens tale, both its distortion to the point of ruination in the planned stage play, and how it is paralleled (at least a little) in some of the characters.

I’m sad to see the end of this series, I want more funny books from Gutteridge.